Tony, The code you want must address a number of additional issues.
Are the elements to be assembled into the table all of the same length? If not, they must be padded with nuls, x'00', and not blanks, x'40'|x'20', at table-assembly time to make them so. Is the search argument shorter than the [padded out] table elements? If so, it must be padded out with nuls at execution/search time to make its length equal to that of the [padded out] table elements. Would it perhaps be better---I think it would---to make the table a self-defining one that contains the information required to search it? A routine that can search any such table given invariant DSECTs for it is a good notion. Should the table have an eyecatcher? (I think it should.) How should the middling subscript/element address be calculated? (Hint. There are two different, correct ways to do this, which yield slightly different decision trees. Moreover, both are notoriously FIXEDOVERFLOW prone.) Etc., etc. It will be interesting to see what if anything people post for our delectation. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
